Media140 comes to Perth

Media 140: Perth 25th Feb 2010

Social Media in the Corporate World: The Impact of the Real Time Web on 'Brand, Marketing & Communications'

Buy your earlybird tickets now here.

From just $187 for the full day conference and networking events.

Originating in London Media140, an international conference phenomenon is travelling around the world in 140 days and hits Sydney in November 2009 and Perth in February 2010.

This innovative conference will bring together a host of prominent and influential speakers to discuss, explore and examine the effects and implications of the real-time web.

For more information click here.

Partners include The West, PPR, CCIWA, AWIA, Networking WA and more.

For sponsorship/speaker/partnership information please contact
rebecca@networkingwa.com.au or @perth140

This conference is for you if you are in the following fields:

-Marketing
-Brand
-Communication
-Online Marketing
-Web
-PR
-Journalism
-Media

or if you simply have an interest in Social Media and the implications for Corporate business and beyond!

Follow the team on twitter
@perth140 @media140
#media140

As a sponsor, PPR will be right in the thick of things, so be sure to follow us on twitter as well for live updates:

@Freocookster @PPRwa

An open letter of thanks

One of the most rewarding aspects of my role in providing public relations services for McDonald's, is the opportunity to promote the work of Ronald McDonald House.

Over the past decade I've worked with some amazing people across Victoria, Tasmania and now Western Australia and have come across some of the bravest families you could ever hope to meet.

I think the letter we received this week (see below) really puts into perspective just how critical the role of Ronald McDonald House is in providing a home away from home for families who are facing what is potentially the most challenging period of their lives.

Please take the time to read this through and then think about what you can do tomorrow on McHappy Day, Saturday 14 November, to make a difference.

Dear Mr Creasey,

On Saturday night myself and my partner Clayton had the wonderful pleasure of attending the Ronald McDonald House Charity Ball.

Clayton, myself and another family "The Rossi's" Jason and Laura were invited as guests of the Cerebos Group who provided us with tickets. This was arranged through the Ronald McDonald House as ourselves and the Rossi's have for a while called The House "home" over the last year or two.

This time last year Clayton and I were two very tired and scared parents dealing with having a new born son who was battling a cancer called Nueroblastoma. We had already been in Perth for a month before Eddie's birth in August 08 as doctors were suspicious of a lump that was previously believed to be cyst.

We were down from Port Hedland having our last holiday before becoming parents when life changed suddenly and completely unexpectedly.

As the lump was growing we were advised not to leave the metro area and we had to make do with our suitcase of clothes until Clayton could return to Hedland to get all the things we had up there for the birth of our baby. Eddie was born on the seventh of August and was taken to Princess Margaret the following day by infant ambulance and placed in Neo Natal intensive care. We were totally unprepared for this turn of events as doctors were positive that once born, the "lump" would not be a problem.

Unfortunately the lump was so large it had pushed Eddie's stomach shut and he was unable to ingest anything at all. After a few days of endless talks with doctors and surgeons an oncologist visited us with the news that she had heard about Eddie and would like to review him as she was certain that he might have a cancer called Neuroblastoma.

Her suspicions were correct and after many tests and meetings Eddie was scheduled for surgery with the hope that the tumour could be removed. Removal was successful but following surgery the cancer spread to Eddie's liver causing many complications and the only alternative was chemotherapy, a path both us and our oncologist had hope to avoid.

So at seven weeks of age, Eddie began treatment and we moved into the Ronald McDonald House.

I cannot stress enough the role The House played in us dealing with such an emotional time. There are many words you can use to explain how you feel when you watch your child fight the battle of his life. Tired, lonely, scared and dealing with the feeling of our lack of control over his health, we were overcome with gratitude and emotion at being welcomed into the house with open arms by the staff and other parents.

We were already exhausted from the ordeal of the last two and a half months, a fact noticed by our social worker who told us to accept some help and get ourselves to the House as we had been living out of suitcases at the hospital for weeks.

The friendships formed and the tears shared at the House all help with the healing you need as a parent. There is nothing like the joy of celebrating with other parents when they receive good news and nothing like sharing a hug when it is bad.

Fortunately at five months of age, Eddie was deemed fit and well to finally go home. There were tears of joy and tears of sadness at leaving the House and the friends we had made, many of whom are now at home with their healthy children.

We still use the house a lot as Eddie will have a follow up program until he is 18 and it is a joy to know that when we fly down to Perth and you are coiled up inside with the fear of a bad test result that at least you have the sanctuary of the house for your time down there.

It is on that note that I would like to thank everyone involved with the ball from the bottom of my heart for the wonderful job done on Saturday night. I was truly overwhelmed sitting at our table watching people bid way over the value on the auction items. Both Laura and I got a little teary knowing that the huge part the House plays in our lives was made possible by the generosity of these people.

One of the most amazing experiences of our cancer journey with Eddie was coming face to face with some of the most giving, amazing, compassionate people we have ever had the pleasure of being involved with, and Saturday night reminded us that Perth and Western Australia is filled with the most amazing giving people.

You guys should be proud of yourselves for showcasing that(and that huge $700,000 raised).

So now we are back in Hedland boasting to our friends about our glamorous night on the Silk Road with the divine food and of course that fantastic band. And I would like to say on behalf of any family who has ever had the experience of the sanctuary provided by the Ronald McDonald House a big thank you and all the best for next year's ball.

Yours Sincerely
Dannielle Aggiss

The Rottnest Island experience

Rottnest Island isn't the most scenic holiday location on earth. The accommodation is a bit rough around the edges, food prices are steep, there are poisonous snakes in the sand dunes and quokka shit sprinkled liberally across all walking surfaces.

Have I put you off? Good, cause to be honest it's my favourite place on the planet and I'd rather keep it to myself. You can have your lush rainforest resorts, or drink cocktails out of two litre buckets in Bali and I'll have my Rotto.

So it was with great pleasure that I spent the last two weeks on the great southern island with Mrs Cookster and the young Cookster clan aged 2, 3 and 10. Having spent much of my childhood on Rotto, marking such memorable occasions as learning to ride my bike and getting drunk for the first time, it was a visit filled with much misty-eyed nostalgia.

In a case of life turning the full circle, I was able to watch my own son come to grips with a bike in almost the exact spot that I had some 35 years earlier. Back then the road on the Bathurst end of Thompson Bay was shaded by Bungalow 5 where our family would spend two weeks every January.

My Nanna Flora was the ruler of that rickety bungalow and in charge of duties including the shooing of rogue quokkas with the broom, boiling the water for the nightly 'bucket baths', preparing the freshly caught herring and procuring the fabled bakery cream buns.

My Grandad Len would work with Dad to set up our illegal 'hose and shower head' set-up in the back courtyard so the adults could take an illicit shower without having to line up and pay for a wash at the shower blocks.

This recent visit gave me time to reflect on those happy days and bring my Nanna back to the island for one last time. Our family gathered on the rocks beneath the Bathurst Lighthouse and scattered her ashes into the waters at Pinkies Beach where she would swim every morning in her powder blue bathing suit and matching swimming cap. Enjoy the stay Nanna, we'll be keeping the tradition alive.

That night I dreamt I was nine years old, lying on my cot on the verandah of bungalow 5, smelling the scent of Rottnest Pines and salt lake foam, reading war comics and rubbing my sandy feet on the RIB army blankets at the foot of the bed.

The next day we learned that a young boy had been killed by a collapsed pillar in a unit not far from where the now demolished bungalow 5 once stood. It was an awful feeling that such a tragedy should take place on an island that's supposed to be about creating treasured family memories.

With sentimentality running high, I texted some rather flowery prose in praise of the great island to fellow Rottnest lover, POST Newspaper journalist, union heavyweight and purveyor of smoked herring David 'Fucking Outrage' Cohen.

Of course, he bought me back down to earth by calling me a "wanker" on his cult blogsite Rotto Bloggo.

So in closing, I shall return the favour DC - wanker - and start dreaming of next October when I'll once again tread the sandy shores of Little Parakeet Bay and wallow in its crystal clear waters.

PR & social media - time to get jiggy with it

I was talking with someone this week about the plethora of social media 'experts' that have cropped up like new season mushrooms over the past 18 months and we got on to the subject of where PR fitted in to the scheme of things.

As PR people we are not necessarily tech-savvy. We have IT people to fix our computers and keep us humming along on 'teh interwebz'. We hang about on the geek fringe, dabbling in social networking... or do we more than dabble?

As a blogger for the past five years I've been around the online community for quite some time and would consider myself to be something of an early adopter in that realm.

That being the case, recognising the obvious benefits that social media could bring to my client communication strategies wasn't exactly a huge leap. If I'm online talking about stuff, then surely there are people out there talking about my clients' stuff that I should know about. And if they're not talking about my clients' stuff, then maybe they should be?

That's where some of those PR skills are handy in sorting out the wheat from the chaff. But it's a double edged sword *damn, I should stop with the analogies already!*

Ahem, anyway, as a PR professional my job is to develop clever communication strategies and execute them in a manner to generate as much positive publicity for the client as possible. It's all about the content and the execution.

It's the same with social media strategy. Good content is critical, BUT and it's a huge BUT, the execution is even more critical. It's one thing to pump out a word doc via email to your media lists and follow up with the schmooze, but that just ain't gonna cut the iSnack 2.0 sangers on the interwebz.

What us PR people have had to embrace in a massive way is the idea that we are now communicating with the public directly. Hello, I'm doing it right now! Sure, we still rely heavily on our dear friends in the media to act as the disseminators through traditional media outlets, but we're also coming to you live straight down that copper pipe and into ur 'puters at home.

This is where the big but comes into play. Okay, you're a PR professional kicking huge goals in the traditional sense - column cms coming out of the wahzoo - and then your client says 'let's get jiggy with it on twitter... can you deliver?'

Then you have to ask yourself, 'can I?' Do you have a twitter profile? Do you tweet often? Have you been networking and building your list of followers? Are you sitting there asking 'WTF is he talking about?'

Think of it this way, how important are your media contacts in the PR game as you move through the years and build those links? Bloody important. It's what sets you apart from a PR newby.

The social media arena is no different, if you don't have the contacts, you're not being taken seriously. That point is quite obvious on twitter - if you don't have a good list of followers, you're talking to no one. Sure, Mrs Kutcher and K Rudd will add you to their list, but are they really going to join in the chat about a new burger or pie you're trying to launch?

Don't miss the boat... just sayin'. But just as important, don't suddenly come trampling into the social media space slinging media releases about left right and centre because that'll end in tears. Remember, you're trying to generate a conversation - spamming will win you no friends... trust me, I've been there, but I'm back.

Take the time to develop your contacts and win their trust. Listen to what the tweeps are saying, share ideas and don't just bang on about your clients all the time. Make them WANT to read what you've got to say.

Please excuse any typos, I'm in the middle of organising a tweet-up in Perth to launch Mrs Mac's new Tex Mex pie. Those Perth tweeps just love a pie and a pint :)

The birds are back in town

I was awake at 4.30am this morning. There was a dull glow - a hint of dawn - tapping at my bedroom blinds and then it hit me... this is only going to get MUCH worse as we march into Summer and there is NO daylight saving to come to my rescue.

But it wasn't the light that woke me today. No, it was the early morning cacophony of our native bird life that dragged me from slumber.

First it was the dreadful warbling of the two million magpies that hang out in the adjacent golf course. Excuse the French, but what the fuck are they shouting about? 'Hey, this is my tree - youse can all fuck off and find your own.' 'Hey Frank, there's a baby dugite crossing the 18th fairway that's got our name on it.' 'Man, any of you dudes spot me some worms till my pension check comes in on Wednesday?'

I mean seriously, why at the mere hint of dawn do these noisy bastards have to start up with all the warbling? No wonder koalas are so freakin' grumpy all the time and wombats bury themselves 15ft underground - it's the maggies.

Of course, not long after the maggies start up you get the mother of all noisy bastard birds, the Victorian kookaburra getting in on the act. Throw in a couple of crows having a stoush over the contents of a discarded KFC box and you have a regular fucking orchestra in play.

I don't mind the sound of birds during the day - it's restful. And I get the fact that for some reason they are genetically wired to shout at each other first thing in the morning, but that's why daylight saving was so very, very handy.

As we move into summer, the sun is going to rise progressively earlier and with an increasing level of intensity. Back in 2005 I remember waking at 4.45am one morning thinking I'd slept in. That summer the kids were all awake no later than 5.30am.

For the last three summers the kids have been in bed by 8.30pm - no issues with late sun - and been up at the reasonable hour of 7am. But no longer.

So I'm thinking of making a statement. I'm looking to track down an old Mr Whippy van and when the magpies start their early morning warble, I'm gonna fire that sucker up and hit the streets where the 'NO' DLS voters live and MAKE SURE they're awake to appreciate their glorious early morning light.

And instead of Green Sleeves, I might instead opt for a bit of Enter Sandman or Good Morning Sunshine. Maybe the Pixies doing Gouge Away. I'd be keen to hear your suggestions?

The world of Socialnomics

This video sorta makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

There's no doubt that social media / networking is THE new way of communicating and engaging with the world around us, but some people really do still see it as some kind of fad. If that's you, then watch this video and give yourself a short reality check.

Hell, I never saw a computer until I was about 14 and that had a room to itself that could have housed a small family. I watched black and white TV until grade seven and thought Space Invaders was about as far as technology could possibly ever go. Hah, my first computer was a Commodore 64 - 64kbs, about as powerful as a calculator!

My point is, this change is happening and for people in the communications game it represents a whole new ball game. This beast is galloping along at a powerful pace and I reckon we all need to hang on tight and get ready for the ride of our lives.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

The West Magazine is running a competition asking people to name the five people they'd most like to invite to dinner and why.

Most of the celebrity responses in Saturday's mag were fairly pedestrian, but of course Luke Steele was suitably off-centre, listing Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba, Al Green, Jane Fonda as Barbarella, James Stewart and Elvis Presley.

I think limiting the number to five is a bit harsh and points off to those who chose to list their partners in the mix - that's gotta be a given doesn't it? And besides, we want to hear about the people who interest you, not about how much you wuv your wife!

So off the top of my head, here's my list. Is there any way to avoid looking like a pretentious arse? I think not...

Hunter S Thompson: Okay, okay, I can hear the cries of wanker ringing out, but imagine the party favours he would bring to the table. And when it all gets too much we could simply dip into the ether supply.

Paul Keating: to remind us of a time when Australian politicians had some clout and could fire off a clever retort like a whip crack.

Carl Hiaasen: A ferociously funny environmental evangelist who writes about the rape and pillage mentality of land developers in Florida. I'd like to see him turn up as his alter ego - the character Skink who has a glass eye and stalks the everglades wearing a shower cap.

Robert G Barrett: author of the Les Norton series of novels that are absolutely compelling, despite being devoid of any literary merit whatsoever. Ideally we'd meet over schnitzels and ice cold Emundi Lagers at the Hakoa Club in downtown Bondi... ah, you wouldn't be dead for quids.

Melanie Safka: the voice that beguiled me back in the 80s when I thought my black suede winkle picker boots were way groovy and Melanie was singing just for me. I reckon both HST and Bob Barrett will have slapped faces before the night is through.

Okay, this was compiled without a huge amount of through and I fear the gender balance is somewhat lopsided, but you get the idea - your fab five???

Club O update

This Friday, 21 August sees another stellar line-up of original bands set to blow the roof off the North Fremantle Centre.

Club O - O for original - is barely a month old and has already cemented itself as a 'must go' Friday night gig for lovers of live original music from across Perth.

This Friday night you can catch:
- Traffic Stoppers
- The Hectics
- Leon Ewing
- Brown Dog Saloon
- The Shambles

Doors open from 7.30pm and the entry fee is $5. Club O memberships can be bought at the bar... Cookster Senior will sort you out.

You can follow the NFC on twitter by clicking here.